On this day in 1912, Karl May died in Radebeul, Germany. May's fictional character Old Shatterhand spread Christianity and justice across a romanticized American West while fighting "unscrupulous...(Read More)

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TSHA Portal to Texas History Archives

WADE, HOUSTON

WADE, HOUSTON (1882–1947). Houston Wade, collector of Texana and historian, was born in Fayetteville, Fayette County, Texas, on August 14, 1882, the son of Tyler and Ida (Meitzen) Wade. He worked for the La Grange Journal until the early 1900s, when he moved to Houston; there he was employed with the postal service until 1940, when he retired to his farm near Hackberry in Lavaca County. Wade was one of the organizers of the Sons of the Republic of Texas, and he served on its state executive committee for many years. He discovered the original document, drawn by Sam Houston, that founded the Knights of the Order of San Jacinto, an honorary order revived by the Sons of the Republic of Texas in 1941. He worked on the project to compile the first complete list of the men of Capt. Nicholas Mosby Dawson's command, who were slain in the Dawson Massacre. Wade wrote articles on Texas heroes that were published, mainly in the 1930s, in the Masonic Texas Grand Lodge Magazine. His books and brochures include An Early History of Fayette County (1936), written in collaboration with Leonie Rummel Weyand; Thumbnail History of Fayette County (1941); and David Wade, A Texas Pioneer (1943). Books that he compiled were The Dawson Men of Fayette County (1932), Masonic Dictionary, Republic of Texas (1935), Notes and Fragments of the Mier Expedition (1937), and David G. Burnet Letters (1944). Wade was also an advocate of historical markers; he took part in the erection of a monument to Father Michael Muldoon near Hostyn and the memorial tower on Monument Hillqv near La Grange. He died on October 30, 1947, in Hallettsville and was buried in Fayetteville. He was survived by his wife, Ida (Carson).